Envisioning future scenarios for service research

In the last decades an increasing number of researchers and practitioners have embraced the service logic as an approach useful to understand several emerging dynamics that give evidence of the growing relevance of the service sector. Many trends, such as tertiarization, servitization, and dematerialization of the economy, have significantly changed our everyday purchasing and consumption processes increasing, in particular, their immaterial dimension. More recent innovations, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), the Internet of Everything (IoE), the hub of all things, or the Augmented Reality, have increased the interconnection of computing devices embedded in everyday objects, making apparent that this phenomenon is more than an innovation in the way we send and receive data. With the aim to enrich the traditional debate about the relationship between goods and services, given the dominant trend of dematerialization of the economy, the purpose of this paper is to reflect upon possible future scenarios regarding the relationship between the material and immaterial dimensions of purchasing and consumption processes, and its impact on service management and research.